Gabriele Basilico, CINQUE VOLTE Milano (FIVE TIMES MILAN)

Room 2

«There are buildings which, thanks to the knowledge of those who designed them and the vision of those who photograph them, reveal an anthropomorphic form. Hidden in the architecture are eyes, noses, ears, lips, faces waiting for a word, and the word seems to be able to be born only if they experience the revealing event of light, in the limiting condition that is the absence of man. The presence of a man is enough to give architecture back its background value, to give the void the dramatic sense of an absence, while the absence of a man removes this dimension of anguish from the void and makes the void what it really is, because the void fills itself and becomes the subject itself. I do not photograph the void in the sense of a lack of presence, but I photograph the void as the protagonist of itself, with all its lyricism, with all its strength, with all its humanising capacity for communication, because the void in architecture is a structural part, an integral part of its being.»
Gabriele Basilico

«Gabriele Basilico rarely shows us the train entering the city. It is a right discreet and careful position to avoid looking for what is behind the photo. Because photography – we know this from cinema and the press – can be complicit. As the trains enter large cities at evening time, they show glimpses of houses and an interior life of faded upholstery and tired people in the light of yellowish bulbs.»
Aldo Rossi

THE ARTIST

His architectural studies brought Gabriele Basilico (1944- 2013) into contact with the world of publishing, for which he produced a wide range of documentary works. He has done research on urban areas, the territory and architecture, commissioned by private and public bodies. In 1982 he produced an extensive reportage on Milan’s industrial areas entitled Ritratti di fabbriche. Between 1984 and 1985 he was invited by the French government to join the group of well-known photographers involved in the Mission Photographique of the DATAR (Délégation à l’aménagement du territoire et à l’action régionale, des régions et des hommes), the largest and most articulated photographic campaign carried out in Europe throughout the 20th century. In the 1990s he resumed his research on the Italian territory and in particular on the transformations of the urban landscape, first in Milan and then in six different areas of Italy. In 1996, the international jury of the VI International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale awarded him the Osella d’Oro prize for contemporary architectural photography. In 2000 he received the I.N.U. (Istituto Nazionale Urbanistica) award for his contribution to the photographic documentation of urban space. His works are part of numerous international public and private collections and his work has been exhibited in museums and institutions, and private galleries in Italy and Europe.